Turkish hackers breach US Army servers, says report

US government investigators are probing breaches of two sensitive Army webservers by suspected Turkish hackers, according to a report by InformationWeek.

One of the servers, located at the Army's McAlester Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, was penetrated on January 26, according to the publication, which cited investigative records it reviewed. The hack was carried out by a Turkey-based collective known as "m0sted" and caused people attempting to access the site to be redirected to a webpage protesting climate change.

A separate security lapse occurred in September 2007, when the same band of attackers broke into Army Corps of Engineers' servers. They sent site visitors to m0sted.com, which at the time contained anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric and images, the records showed.

It was unclear if either hack allowed the hackers access to sensitive information, InformationWeek said.

The report comes as President Barack Obama on Friday declared the government computer networks a strategic national asset whose protection should be a top priority. He pledged to create a new White House post that would coordinate a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy throughout the entire country.

The breaches on the Army websites were likely the result of SQL injection attacks that allowed the hackers access to the server databases. Such attacks generally take advantage of web applications that fail to properly sanitize text entered into search boxes and other website fields. By entering SQL commands, the hackers can gain control over vulnerable sites.

Investigators for the Department of Defense and other agencies have subpoenaed records from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others in an attempt to learn the identities of the hackers.